


Light on the Battlefield

by elvenelegy



Series: The Chronicles of Noa Kohav [2]
Category: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Character Development, Jedi who aren't Knights, Original Character(s), jedi ocs
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-22
Updated: 2017-03-21
Packaged: 2018-10-09 03:29:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10402842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elvenelegy/pseuds/elvenelegy
Summary: I was sixteen years old, and there was a war on.I wasn’t a soldier. My fate was startlingly clear, perfectly unobscured. I would become a teacher. A guardian. My skillset and my temperament alike were better suited for the crèche than the battlefield.Master Yoda was right. The future holds many paths.Jedi Padawan Noa Kohav never expected to be pulled into a warzone. Now she's a commander on the front lines of the Clone War, and she's struggling to reconcile her training with the destruction she sees around her.  When a mission to take a fortress goes wrong, Noa's faced with the decision to defy the Counsel and her Master for the first time.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This piece is the definitive work on my original character, Noa Kohav. It was the first piece of fiction I wrote about her and her adventures with Eder Kazan, an original character developed by AO3-user sanjunipero. This piece takes place in 21 BBY and exists within the Canon Timeline (Timeline A). Please refer back to the timeline included on my profile for more information about Noa, Eder, and the various timelines they inhabit.
> 
> This piece has been in the works for over half a year and remains unfinished. I've put a lot of love, thought, and effort into it, so I hope you enjoy!

PROLOGUE  


The battle whirls around me, and I am just trying to stay afloat. Blaster bolts fly past me, a horizontal cascade of colors, and I think that they are beautiful. My lightsaber is humming, and my muscles are taut, tense. My Master is beside me, and she is an unbreakable force. Not for the first time, I wish that I wasn’t so preoccupied with the battle. I wish that I could watch her from afar. I would admire her balance. And her precision. And her elusiveness.

And then the battle is over. We are at a standstill. Victory is still out of reach.

We have not won the war.

CHAPTER 1  
“Noa. How are you holding up?” My Master is smiling at me, but a parent’s concern glints in her eyes. A cold cascade of guilt and doubt washes over me. I try my best to suppress it – _it is not the Jedi way_ – but I am still worried that my Master knows I do not belong here. 

I don’t want to be a burden to her. She says that I’m not. She says that self-doubt will cloud my abilities and my connection to the Force. I don’t know. I never doubted myself when I was a Youngling at the Temple. I had no reason to. I knew my own abilities. I knew my own prospects. I was never meant to be a Knight. I was satisfied with the life I had thought I would lead.

“I’m adapting, Master,” I say in response. Jessari’s smile grows a little brighter. 

“Just as I knew you would,” she tells me.

Around us, Clone Troopers are making camp. I feel the urge to help to help them – I love the tactile busyness of setting up an encampment – but I sense that my Master wants to talk.

“You did well today, Noa,” Master Jessari continues. “Your swordsmanship is improving. You seem to favor Form III.”

“Defensive forms do come easily to me,” I say. “Besides, Soresu is best for deflecting blasterbolts in a firefight.”

“Right as always, Noa,” Jessari says. “You really would have made an excellent teacher.”

“Only you pulled me into this warzone instead,” I say. I mean it as a joke, but in truth, it isn’t one.

“You’ll make a better Knight,” says Jessari, as if she’s making me a promise. “But if you like, you can return to the crèche and care for the children once this war is over.”

“But for some reason you don’t think I’m going to.”

“I think the Force has other plans for you,” she says lightly.

I smile, but I am wondering if Jessari can sense my disquiet, my distrust in myself. I don’t believe that the Force is guiding me. I believe that Jessari is.

I remember the day that she chose me. I had already begun to work in the crèche, and I was preparing to shadow one of the Temple’s instructors. Even with the reality of war looming over our heads, I was comfortable in the certainty of my future, and I spent my days in the company of the Temple’s youngest residents, studying and sparring and honing my connection to the Force. I was sparring with one of the older Younglings when Jessari, back from a mission on Corellia, had stopped to watch me. 

After the match, Jessari approached me and asked for my name. “I’m Noa Kohav,” I had told her, bowing respectfully. 

“Noa.” Jessari smiled widely, the first of many grins she’d shoot my way. “My name is Jessari Staff. I’m interested in taking on a Padawan.”

I didn’t understand at first. I must have been visibly startled. “Wes? But he’s only ten. I know that Master Yoda has been promoting Younglings to help with the war effort, but ten? I don’t think—“

Jessari silenced me with a raised hand. “I’m sorry. I should have been clearer. If you would accept, I would be honored to take you on as my Padawan.”

“Me? But I’m an apprentice Crèchemaster,” I said. “I’m meant to be a teacher, not a Knight.”

“I’m sure you’d make an excellent teacher,” Jessari told me. “You have a guardian’s spirit.” She gestured to my blue saber. “But a guardian is also a protector. That’s what we need right now. There’s a war on.”

The war. The war had already swept up too many of my young wards. My friends. I thought of Ahsoka Tano, the bright young Togruta with whom I had shared many sparring sessions. She’d been assigned to the front line a few months ago, shortly after the war had begun.

I didn’t want to be a warrior. I didn’t want to be a Knight. But I didn’t want another child to go in my place.

Jessari was a young Knight – 24 years old and only recently Knighted. Her presence was calm, but her demeanor was playful. According to Temple rumor, she was a force to be reckoned with on the battlefield. She would need a Padawan sooner or later.

And she was right. I wanted to teach. I wanted to nurture. But right now, I needed to protect.

~

Jessari has been drilling me in Form V repetitions for the past two hours. I will my body to forget its fatigue. I try to make peace with my pain. This was all so much easier when I was a Youngling.

It has been a year since I cast aside my teacher’s mantle in exchange for a Padawan braid. By all accounts, my status has increased considerably since then. I am now on the path to becoming a Knight, an honor second only to the title of Master. All Jedi are valuable and equal, we are taught – even those who failed their studies and were sent to the Service Corps – but every Youngling knows that Knights are the elite. My decision to become an instructor, while necessary and valued, had technically been an admission of failure. I have always known that I am not strong enough for Knighthood. 

So why did I accept Jessari’s offer? For the honor? The glory? I had liked my role as a teacher and a caretaker. I am, at my core, a nurturer.

Jessari tells me that I have great potential as a swordswoman. My skills are apt, I think, but not great. I have always excelled in non-martial uses of the Force, while my abilities as a warrior have suffered. I really shouldn’t be here.

I perform a final slash of my saber and double over, panting. If the Separatists attacked now, I’d be in deep Bantha shit, as the Clones say.

“You’re doing well, Noa.” Jessari has placed her hand on my shoulder. A soothing resonance flows from her, calming my frazzled nerves. I’m still amazed at how she does that.

Over the past year, our bond has become deep and strong. We are connected through the Force; our link cannot be severed. I know now that she can feel my self-doubt, sense it as palpably as if it were her own. I must try harder not to feel it, so as not to burden her.

“My stance was sloppy,” I admit. “And I lacked strength in my blows.” 

“Remember, you’re not in the Temple right now. You’re out here,” she gestures broadly, “in the real world, not behind safe walls. Out here, we can strive for the perfect form, but we cannot demand it of ourselves. Besides, do you really think I’d let you carry on for 100 repetitions if you were doing it wrong?”  
“No, you wouldn’t. That would be… incredibly counterproductive.”

“Right. Have a little more faith in yourself.” She taps her index finger over her heart – our symbol. Trust yourself, it tells me.

Hard words to live by.

~

A shuttle is arriving today. It contains another battalion of Clone Troopers and a Jedi Padawan to lead them. As the craft hovers and touches down, I walk across the encampment to greet my friend, Eder Kazan. Eder is by far the most untraditional Jedi I have ever met. He is striding around shirtless, his bare muscles exposed to the elements as they were in his youth on Felucia. Eder has had a hard life – far harder than the lives of most Jedi younglings, despite the trials they endure – and his face is etched with a permanent hardness. It is unpainted today, and his wild, pale hair is tied up above his neck. He breaks into a grin when he sees me, the rough edges of his face softening a little, and he greets me in turn with an aggressive and unreserved bear hug. 

“Put me down,” I say, failing to conceal the amusement in my voice. While I’m quieter about my emotions, Eder and I share a difficulty to resist attachments. It’s un-Jedi-like of us, but as my best friend holds me a foot above the ground (he loves to lord his height – and my shortness – over me), I find it hard to care. “And put a shirt on.”

“It’s hot out,” Eder says. 

“You’re on a battlefield, in case you haven’t noticed. You think your bare skin will protect you?”

“It’s been pretty resilient so far.” Which is true. He wouldn’t have survived this long if it hadn’t been.

I squirm a little, and Eder sets me down. I’m proud of him; he’s been commanding his troops without his Master’s guidance for months now. He’s on his way to becoming a General. Part of me feels like I should be jealous, but it’s not the Jedi way, and besides, I could never feel true ill will towards Eder.

Eder is hurricane on the battle field. He was raised in the most trying of circumstances, and the experiences hardened him and made him resolute. The Felucians who guided his earliest training imparted in him a wisdom that eludes even the Jedi. But I know that his strength comes at the cost of great personal pain.

“Ah, Eder. You’ve arrived.” Jessari is next to us suddenly, a front of calm in the relative chaos of the camp. She raises one eyebrow. “Did you misplace your shirt?”

“I’m sensing that you two want me to put on a robe,” Eder says, laughter in his voice. 

“How perceptive.” Jessari’s amethyst eyes are twinkling.

Eder goes off to find some spare robes, and Jessari and I join Commander Mica and a few of his men who are gathered around a Holomap. “They’ve got a blockade set up around the Eastern fortress,” Mica explains. “Three battalions of clankers at least. They’ve got choke-points set up at every available entrance. We can’t get through without running into a hundred of those metal bastards. This isn’t going to be easy.”

Jessari studies the map thoughtfully, one hand toying with the ends of her long white hair. “Right here – this is a bridge, isn’t it?”

“Yes, General.”

“What’s below it?”

Mica enlarges the map to display in detail the quadrant. “A fifty yard drop and a canyon that’s half a mile wide.”

“Hmm.” Jessari’s eyes glaze over. She is strategizing, I know. “What sort of security could we expect down in the canyon?”

“A stationed guard of battle droids, maybe? I couldn’t imagine them posting more than two or three sentries. They wouldn’t expect us to brave the canyon.”

“And why’s that?” I ask. The Separatists do not underestimate us. They wouldn’t leave the canyon pass so unguarded if they thought we could traverse it easily.

“The canyon’s a death trap. Jagged rocks. 90-degree slopes. Packs of carnivorous animals. A wind tunnel, probably.”

I lock eyes with Jessari. “Can we do it?”

Jessari smiles like this is a game. “We’ve got suspension cables and determination. We can do it.”

~

The company disperses, rallying the others to prepare for our descent into the canyon. We’ll make the climb a few kilometers from the bridge, where hopefully we’ll remain undetected. On the side of the canyon walls, we’ll be easy targets. We must be stealthy. The Separatists cannot find us.

Eder and I meet in the center of camp. He is wearing a robe now, and he has prepared his cables for the climb. “This is going to be fun,” he says.

“You and I have very different definitions of the word ‘fun,’ my friend. Mine involves a far lower chance of death or injury.” 

“Well, that’s not fun at all.” Eder pouts. I raise an eyebrow.

“Tell me how much fun you’re having when we’re halfway to the bottom of that canyon. If you haven’t been impaled on a stone spire, of course.”

“Of course.”

We smile at each other a little sadly, because despite our jokes and teasing, we know that not everyone will return from this mission. As Jedi, we have an advantage – the Force will guide us around the rocks, cushion our landing, and calm the ravenous animals that await us – but our survival is not guaranteed. As Jedi, we have already made peace with this fact.

A Republic Gunship is deployed to take us to the point. We secure our cables and begin our descent. As we lower ourselves into the cavern, I can’t help but think of the gaping jaws of some enormous animal. A darkness surrounds us, wispy at first, and then more solid. The less I see, the more I rely on the Force. My connection to it feels stronger here, and I am comforted in the thought that I can depend on the Force to guide me – the one thing I can truly be sure of down here.

As the light recedes, darkness grows – a darkness in the Force as well as in the tangible world. It is not threatening, not immediate. There is a darkness in the danger we are undertaking here for the sake of victory. A place like this, so ready for our deaths, cannot be filled with light.

Still, it is a sort of neutral darkness, which comforts me. I have rarely brushed fingertips with the Dark Side of the Force; it does not tempt me the way it might tempt a warrior (though it does have a way of whispering to the curious, to the healers and the nurturers. You rarely hear of a Turned healer, but when you do, you know that she followed muttering promises of knowledge and the power to protect). I know that I should be wary of any hint of the Dark Side, but it is a relief to sense a presence or power that does not actively want to kill us.

Passively? Now, that’s another story.

The first peril comes with a shriek that could raise Hell. The presence I feel is dark and inky, gliding through the air on leathery black wings. I do not exactly see the creature – it is like a shadow in this false-night – but I can tell that it is very large and bat-like. And it is hungry. Oh, I can sense its hunger, its dwindling Life Force. It is ravenous. I press myself against the cold stone wall, one hand on the wire cable and the other just barely hesitating over the hilt of my lightsaber. I wonder if Jessari and Eder can feel the beast’s hunger as acutely as I can; it is causing me physical anguish. The monster ( _no, no, it is not a monster – it is hungry and alone and afraid, but the things it does are monstrous_ ) plucks one of our Clone Troopers off of the wall. Desperately, I grab out at him with the Force. I make a slippery connection, feeling with a hazy intensity his pain and fear. And I feel his Life Force being pulled away from him, ripped from the seams. And then there is one thread remaining, one glimmering string connecting him to life. And then he is out of my reach, our connection fading. Or he is dead. I cannot be sure.

I know that I should have comforted him, reaching out with the Force to give him some sense of serenity in those final painful moments. But everything is happening so quickly, and I fear that the beast is coming back for more. He is so hungry. And I am so dizzy. And I know that I must center myself; allowing myself to be distracted by this man’s death is neither productive nor proper for a Jedi. I am still here. I am still here.

And I reach out to Jessari. And she reaches back.

I would not say that confidence surges through me, but something akin to it does. I am resolute. 

The beast swoops again. The men reach for their blasters, but it is difficult to aim when you’re swinging on a thin cable above a seemingly bottomless ravine. Above me, I hear shouting and chaos. I close my eyes and focus. In the next moment, my lightsaber is in my hand, sapphire blade ignited. 

Relying of the Force more than my compromised vision, I note the trajectory of the beast. It is heading towards the spot where Eder, Jessari, and I freely swing. I brace myself against the rock wall. I do not want to kill this creature; it is not evil. The darkness has been chased away by the glow of my lightsaber and Eder and Jessari’s behind me. A neon glow, blue and orange and purple.

I do not want to kill the beast. But if it dares attack Jessari or Eder, I will do it.

The creature seems to sense my resolve. The air in front of me is charged with sincerity, the promise I have made echoing in the nontangible webs of the Force. It slows and begins to change course.

I see a lightsaber coming down in a curved arch. The blade is orange.

The creature is dead.


End file.
